Josh Roseman - The Clockwork Russian and Other Stories

Ben looked like he wanted to pout — he hated when people stole his punchlines — but trooped up the stairs with Sam.

“Very droll, Dad,” Dan said.

“Thanks. Glad you like it.”

“Eh.”

There was a crack, and we both turned back to the field to see one of the Twins knock one into left-center. “So, Dad,” Dan said after a gulp of soda, “what’s up?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, “why’d you fight Mom so hard for us to come with you to this game?”

“You think I can afford tickets this good on my own?”

“I don’t know. You work in TV.”

“Right.” I took a hit off my own soda. “Short answer: Ben won the tickets, Ben and I are friends, and he invited us.”

“Cool,” Dan said, but in that unenthusiastic way all teenagers seemed to say it.

The inning ended. The Twins trotted out onto the field. It wasn’t until the second batter made it up to the plate that Dan, rather idly, not even looking my way, asked what the long answer was.

My head snapped up — I’d been watching a pretty girl in an unflattering top sidle her way across the sixth row. “What do you mean?”

“What’s the long answer?” Now he was looking at me.

And Sam was back too. “Long answer? What’s the question?” He dropped into his seat next to me and handed me a plastic bag of peanuts. “Come on, Dad,” he said, lips pressed together in disapproval. “You tell Dan all the good stuff, but not me. What’s up with that?”

“Do people still say that?” I asked, trying to stall.

“Da-ad.”

Crap. “Ben?”

Ben shrugged. “All yours, dude. I’m just here for the baseball.”

“You’re full of shit.”

Sam looked scandalized — had I really never cursed in front of him before? — but I could tell neither he nor Dan were going to let it go.

I took a breath and looked up at the top of the dome. In a perfect world — or a movie — whatever was going to happen would’ve happened at that exact moment.

In this world, though, it took until I’d explained about the crawl on the morning news.

All around us, people were shouting, running for the exits, taking photos and videos with all kinds of cell phones. Sam looked like he wanted to bold; Ben and Dan were with the cell phone crowd.

I put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “It’s okay, son. It’s okay.”

“Okay?” His voice was an octave too high. “Dad, what is that thing, and what’s it doing in the middle of the field?”

I looked at the infield; the players had scattered, back to the catacombs of the building, somewhere under our seats. The ship — it had to be a ship; it couldn’t be anything else — had appeared out of nowhere. No noise, no lasers cutting open a hole in the dome, no thrusters burning the grass. I’d been looking at the girl again until someone had yelled, “What the fuck is that?”

The thing was about as big as the infield itself, rectangular, maybe five or six stories high. I flashed instantly on Borg ships, but this couldn’t be the Borg. A , they were fictional, and B , whoever these people or aliens or whatever turned out to be, they had at least bothered to put windows and doors on the ship. Parts of it — looked like exhaust ports to me — were still glowing reddish with heat. The ship itself was a deep, silvery color, and it didn’t reflect light. Flashes from photographers didn’t shine back off the skin of the ship, but there were slight flickers of reflection from the windows.

“Dad,” Dan said slowly, eyes wide and fixed on the ship. “What. The fuck. Did you bring us here for?”

“Don’t curse,” I said automatically, my own eyes examining the ship.

“No, Dad, I think I deserve a fuck or two here.” He looked at me, and he looked pissed. “You got some weird messages, figured out what they meant, and decided you wanted me and Sam to be here when aliens invaded our planet? Is that it, Dad? Is it?”

“Damn it, Dan!” I snapped, finally looking at him. “Don’t you get it? This is… it’s…”

Ben picked up when I stammered out. “It’s history, dude. It’s like, where were you on 9/11, or where was your grandpa when Kennedy got shot, or when we landed on the moon. Stuff like this, you’ll want to say you were there. Your kids will think you’re awesome.”

“My kids?” He looked past me and I turned; Sam’s knuckles were white where he squeezed the arms of his seat. “How many kids in here tonight, Ben?”

Sam’s face was as white as his knuckles, brown eyes wide and glittering. “I want to go home, Dad.” His voice was very, very small.

I put my arm over his shoulders and tried to pull him to me. “It’ll be okay, Sam. I’m sure it’s safe. They… um… probably just needed a way into the dome.” I smiled, but it felt fake, even to me. “Maybe if they waited a couple of years, they could’ve just come into the new stadium without worrying about the roof, right?”

“That’s not funny,” Dan said, almost snarling. “Come on, Sam. Let’s get out of here.”

“Where are you going to go? I drove.”

He held out his hand. “Give me your keys, then. Your new alien friends—” and he choked on the word “—can give you a ride home.”

“Dan, come on!” I pointed toward the ship. “They sent us a message. Look around you, and think about the people you passed on the way in. How many of them looked like real baseball fans?” He glowered, but I pushed on. “A lot of people got this message. Why would aliens bother to tell us they were coming if they were going to kill us all?”

He shook his head. “Give me the damn keys, Dad.”

I glanced at Ben, who shrugged again. “Dan,” I said, “please, don’t go. This is important.”

“Important to you, maybe.” He waved in the general direction of the rows of seats behind us. “Look around you, Dad,” he said, parroting my words and my tone. “People are getting the hell out of here. They’re scared. Even your conspiracy-theory buddies aren’t staying.”

“I—”

But Dan kept going, raising his voice right over mine. “I don’t care who’s in the ship! I don’t care if they’re here to give us warp drive or the cure for AIDS or what! You just dragged me and Sam with you because you don’t think aliens can be evil! Come on, Dad, I watch movies just like you, but you’re an optimist and I’m not!”

“Dan…”

He got up and crossed in front of me to put his hand on Sam’s arm. “Come on, bro. We’re going.”

“Sam… you know I wouldn’t put you in danger…”

“I’m scared, Dad,” Sam said. “I want Mom.”

I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. “Sam…”

He let Dan pull him to his feet. Dan held out his hand again. “Keys, Dad.”

I gave them to him. “Here.”

“Thanks.” He didn’t sound appreciative, just sad. “Good luck.”

The stadium had been empty enough by that point that Dan and Sam had no trouble getting out of the stands. I hoped they’d be okay on the concourse level.

“Dude, that was harsh.” Ben had his phone out, probably on the internet.

“Yeah.” My own phone was vibrating in my pocket; I put it to my ear. “Hello?”

“What the hell is going on over there?”

“Yeah, Michelle, have to call you back in a few minutes,” I said, voice dull.

“What about Sam? What about Dan? What the hell—”

I ended the call.

“Hey, Greg?”

“What?”

“Check this out.” He handed over his phone; the CNN app was open. “Dude, every baseball game in the country has one of these things at it. It’s not just here.”

“Really?”